1894. | NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 173 
illumination, but always kept near to the zenith. The appear- 
ance suggested a current of electricity passing through a thin 
cloud of ring-like formation. 
‘When I first saw the aurora there were cloud masses of very 
dark gray color ranged from the west point of the horizon 
around to the east. The upper edge of this bank was irregular. 
At the west it rose highest, reaching some 35 degrees from the 
horizon at times. Its height was not always the same. This 
western bank of clouds was the focus of the greatest display. 
Here were to be seen the most exquisite rosy tints, which spread 
with radiated bands to the zenithal ring, and thence seemed to 
pass out in all directions. Later the western focus was dimmed 
and there appeared a vivid display of red light in the east, 
which sent up shafts to the zenith, and there again the ring 
appeared and seemed to distribute the silvery blue light in all 
directions. At various times this answering of the east display 
to the west was finely seen. 
“At about 8:45 the finest of the display was over, and there 
appeared in the north about 20 degrees west a curtain aurora 
having an extension east and west of about 35 degrees and 
rising toward the zenith with its peculiar folds about 45 degrees. 
‘‘ Later in the evening, at the observatory at 118th street, be- 
tween | and 3 o'clock, I again at times looked at the aurora, and 
I could see wave-like pulsations moving from horizon to zenith, 
as in the aurora of February 25d, previously described, but this 
motion was faint compared with the motions of the aurora of 
February 23d. 
“ During my observations early in the evening the light was 
intense enough to enable me to read readily the time from my 
watch, and when I went up to 118th streets, I looked at some of 
the light masses with a small direct vision spectroscope, but ob- 
tained only a very faint continuous spectrum. I am inclined to 
believe that had I the spectroscope when the display was most 
brilliant, I would have obtained the characteristic spectrum of 
the aurora. 
“The intensity of the light and the peculiar display at the 
zenith giving the ring formation suggests to my mind the possi- 
